Summer 2025 Event Photography at the National Portrait Gallery
Photographing Summer Parties – Tricks of the Trade
Baking a sponge cake or hanging a picture are the sorts of things that appear easy but are often more difficult than they seem. Taking photographs at corporate summer parties is similar.
But it’s a party, for pity’s sake – how hard can it be to take pictures of folk enjoying themselves?
Planning work behind the scenes
Well, these days clients want more than simply to instruct a corporate photographer to turn up to a summer party and start snapping.
Many clients send in advance a list of guests who mustn’t be photographed with a drink in their hands because they plan to share the images afterwards in a professional context.
As you can imagine, interrupting guests to ask them to put down a glass for a group shot requires particularly good people skills. We have to achieve this quickly and with as little interference as possible so these images don’t look posed and therefore inauthentic among a larger set of reportage-style shots.
No stalking of VIPs
We’ll have digested a brief indicating which VIPs might be attending – MPs, Members of the House of Lords, well-known journalists, actors, musicians or others in the performing arts – are often on the guest list. Invariably, our brief will be to ensure the VIPs are photographed engaging with the host’s CEO, but we are very careful not to intrude – they are there to relax and have a good time like all the other guests.
Guests working in highly sensitive professions – such as UK or overseas intelligence – who need to protect their identities will not be photographed. We rely on advance notification from the client to ensure these guests are never captured on camera.
Getting the job done
There is a sweet spot at every summer party where guests have had a few drinks to relax and are looking immaculate when the event is still in full flow and before it begins to thin out towards the end of the evening.
Sometimes this sweet spot coincides with requests for individual portraits for social media. To offer this additional service, we can set up a dedicated area at the party with professional lighting and backdrops. If needed, we can also have a second corporate photographer stationed there to ensure this does not interfere with our primary focus: capturing the special moments of the event.
Staying in the background
Our event photography work must be done quickly and unobtrusively; our goal is to remain in the background as much as possible. We don’t set our cameras on burst mode, which allows multiple shots when holding the shutter down because guests find the machine-gun sound disturbing, and it can trigger anxiety. For the same reason, we try our best not to use flash — no one enjoys being temporarily blinded by a bright light.
Still time to book us for your summer parties
If you are planning a summer party and would like us to attend, please get in touch. We have plenty of capacity at the moment and can also consider short-notice bookings.
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Professional corporate photographer, providing company headshot photography and video for businesses in London, the rest of the UK and Europe. Piranha are commissioned by FTSE100 companies and start-ups alike, for numerous projects, covering a wide range of work and styles. Portraits and office photography for use on websites, events coverage and PR shots for press and publications, as well as Board and location photography for annual reports. Using top of the range Leica cameras and lenses. We process the images promptly and to an extremely high standard.
